The quarterly publication of the International Legal Technology Association
Issue link: https://epubs.iltanet.org/i/411912
Gary Kinder is a lawyer and New York Times bestselling author. He has taught over 1,000 writing programs for the American Bar Association and for law firms and corporate law departments around the country. He is also the creator of WordRake, the clear and concise editing software, which Harvard Law School recently recognized as "Disruptive Innovation." Randi Mayes is the Executive Director of ILTA where she is responsible for oversight of all operations and serves as editor-in-chief of the association's numerous publications. A member of the American Society of Association Executives and the Texas Society of Association Executives, she has spoken and written on topics related to leadership development and association management. She's more than a little nuts about good writing. IT and THAT "It" often signals a "windup," or "throat clearing," as some judges call it; "that" will almost always accompany "it" a few words away: • It was Not until after the war that did I learned who it was that had knocked. • It is Often the case that juniors and their parents would like some advice . . . • It is possible that An Illinois court could might apply this doctrine to . . . IN Out of the 145 prepositions in English, the preposition "in" introduces more pat junk phrases than the other 144 combined: • We have significant tax issues in the event that if we sell it. • Our literary era has offered little in the way of insights into . . . • In the interest of saving To save time, please feel free to modify . . . OF The word "of" helps us spot more unnecessary words than any other sign, and those words might appear on either side of the "of": • During the course of the investigation, the men were evaluated five times . . . • Given the nature of its elegantly simple code structure . . . • This information is used solely for the purpose of improving to improve . . . . (PERIOD) "Over explaining" is going beyond the point at which our reader already understands. Most over explaining appears at the end of a sentence. If the last words form a prepositional phrase, it increases the likelihood we can discard them: • Lundgren held that the absent party was indispensable to the subject action. • I was the only professional woman pilot in Africa at that time. • Any more than that, and we begin to lose credibility with our readers. AS We treat the word "as" as we treat the word "of": we look around it for unnecessary words: • We have just finished celebrating Yahoo!'s tenth year as a company. • This is as good a good place as any to repeat that our code will not be . . . • As for My colleagues, they returned the favor many fold. OR The word "or" helps us spot repetitious, and therefore unnecessary, words. A classic example is "whether or not": • In determining whether or not an infringing act was innocent, courts may . . . • If we do not stop the slide, it will mean the end for one or another of us. • Just as with any complex task or project, your first job is to . . . Our sentences do not have to be short; we do not have to dumb-down our discussion or our vocabulary; but we do have to remove words not conveying meaning. Otherwise, they obscure the words trying to connect with our reader. As Strunk and White added: "This requires not that the writer make all sentences short, or avoid all detail and treat subjects only in outline, but that every word tell." Just like every line of elegant code. *Somewhere between 1959 and 1979, someone slipped in four new rules, 7-10, so your copy might list the famous "13. Omit Needless Words" as "17. Omit Needless Words." WWW.ILTANET.ORG 91